Contents

The Short: Radar Men from the Moon - Chapter 1: Moon Rocket

Synopsis

Key U. S. energy facilities are being destroyed by an unknown weapon. The head of federal security visits Commando Cody and his colleagues to get help with the investigation. Cody and crew have invented a “rocket suit” which Cody uses for his missions. Using the rocket suit, Cody thwarts a train sabotage and discovers a ray gun. Cody and crew speculate that the ray gun uses technology never before seen on Earth. They focus their attention on the moon, where 'unusual amounts' of atomic activity have been detected. Cody and crew take their rocket ship to the moon to investigate. Once on the moon, they find a hidden city, and Cody encounters Retik, Ruler of the Moon. Retik tells Cody about his plans to invade Earth. He also tells Cody about the element “lunarium,” which he will use to conquer the Earth. Cody fights the Moon men in an effort to escape, as Retik tries to disintegrate him with a ray gun blast.

Information

Radar Men from the Moon is the first episode from a 1952 serial called Commando Cody starring George D. Wallace (not to be confused with segregationist governor of Alabama George C. Wallace).

The production was over-budget (which was itself high for the era at $172,840) and therefore unable to afford a stunt man for leading actor George Wallace, who ended up breaking his nose while filming one of the fight scenes.

According to IMDB, the serial's tagline was "BLASTING OUT OF SPACE...and into ATOMIC ACTION." The program is currently in the public domain.

The Movie

Synopsis

The Robot vs the Aztec Mummy

With a sub-barrel-bottomed budget, this Mexican horror outing features wicked old Dr. Krupp (also known as 'The Bat'), the crazed experimenter who caused trouble in this film's two predecessors, The Aztec Mummy and Curse of the Aztec Mummy (both 1957), up to his old tricks.

As in the former features (featured in this movie as rather lengthily recaps), he is again trying to trick the Aztec mummy Popoca into leaving his crypt so the bad doctor can get at the treasure within. This time his scheme entails the invention of the title tin man (complete with incandescent light-bulb ears), a device he equips with a human brain (making it a cyborg technically). A horrific battle ensues when the two monsters collide. [1]

The Episode

Host Segments

Dr. Erhardt and Dr. F

Segment One (Invention Exchange):Joel invents the airbag helmet for motorcyclists. Dr. Forrester invents Chalk Man - a device that makes noise like fingernails on a chalkboard to force guests to leave your party; he intends to use it for the scientist convention which he admits only blowing up twice (the third time it burned down). Both he and Larry get hurt by their own security device to push the button.

Segment Two:Demon Dogs are invading. Tom Servo tries to put up a fight, but gets peed on because he resembles a fire hydrant.

Segment Three:Enoch, King of the demon dogs, appears and speaks to Joel and the bots. Apparently the demon dogs believe that the Satellite of Love is a giant dog bone. But before Joel can explain, Gypsy eats Enoch.

Ending Segment: After a Demon Dog invades the theater at the end, they're revealed to have overrun the SOL. Joel plays fetch with the demon dogs, finally getting rid of them...until the crew realize that ‘fetch’ means ‘go get and bring back.’ Meanwhile, Forrester and Larry are still recovering from being hit by the security device.

In addition to smoking, reportedly this was the only episode in which the riffers were drinking while shooting the theater scenes.

The crew who worked on this episode were reportedly sheepish about some of their interferences with the film to make jokes. One involved Joel putting his hand over a singing woman's mouth on the screen to which the sound was notably lowered. The other was inserting the sound of someone urinating when an actor's back was turned on the screen. They personally apologized for this in The Amazing Colossal Mystery Science Theater Guide.

Goofs

Josh's hair can be seen peaking above the desk after Servo exits and before Gypsy enters during Segment Three.